EN

TechHub Riga Doubles its Size with a New Chairman

Latvians Online | 

On Friday Nov 21 TechHub Riga hosted its opening event. Latvia’s central startup hub has moved into a new building, twice the size of their previous office and able to fit in around 150 people. Among other announcements, Andris Berzins is stepping down as TechHub chairman and letting Ernests Stals take over the lead. Ernests is a logical choice, considered he was at the inception of what is now TechHub Riga as once started as Open Coffee Club and later grew into regular startup evenings. In addition, another member is joining the board of TechHub Riga – Raimonds Kulbergs, who left Big 4 consulting to build Funderful, the startup behind TechHub Riga fundraising campaign.

These are not the only new developments in TechHub Riga. The startup hub also announced its strategic partnership with Latvian national telecommunications giant Lattelecom. From now on, TechHub Riga will have a strong internet connection provided by Lattelecom and all notable TechHub events will be streamed using Lattelecom streaming services. Andris Berzins shared his vision that this cooperation will make TechHub more accessible to people outside of Riga who cannot always make it to their events, including the TechChill Baltics conference in February.

TechHub now also plans to provide support for hardware startups. They announced partnerships with Riga Technical University Riga Design Factory and Make Riga hackerspace founded by Rihards Skrubs, CEO of Dimple.

Besides that TechHub Riga is now oficially the Latvian chapter of Silicon Vikings network – a non-profit created to build bridges between Nordic technology startups and Silicon Valley. The official information about the Latvian chapter is supposed to appear on the Silicon Vikings webpage soon.

In addition to its fundraising campaign that has already gathered over EUR 3000, TechHub announced more in-kind contribution. In particular, from now on TechHub has regular office hours with experts donating their time to hub’s startups. TechHub mentors include Janis Skutelis (FlyCap), Signe Sneidermane (Repsonsum), Arturs Mednis (Inspired Digital), Andris Rubins (DDB Latvia), Egils Boitmanis (Infinitum8), Ingrida Karina-Berzina (Raidla Lejins & Norcous), Leo Selavo (University of Latvia Faculty of Computing) and the TechHub Riga board members. Any more mentors willing to contribute are welcome to join the team.

TechHub Riga was established 3 years ago and was funded by 26 founding members who paid their yearly membership fee upfront. This has helped get the hub started and cover operational expenses while more startup enthusiasts joined. To date TechHub Riga has helped 27 alumni startups, most of whom are still active. Currently, there are 30+ companies and 100+ people developing their business in TechHub Riga. With a never-ending demand for joining the hub and with older tenants growing their teams, in 2013 TechHub announced that it would be moving to a new building.

‘It was a challenge to find the right space’ Andris Berzins admits. ‘We had impossible requirements – we wanted a huge open office-type space to keep fostering collaboration, we wanted it in the city centre as most of our members use public transport and we wanted it cheap as we are a non-profit foundation.’

Luckily for TechHub they met Alex Blumentals from Katalyst Growth Partners who was also looking for a space to foster innovation. He was already in negotiations with the owners of the building on Kalku street 12/14, Baltic RE, and invited TechHub to join. Katalyst Growth Partners will occupy the 4th floor, right below TechHub Riga. Baltic RE, a Latvian real estate company with Italian owners has agreed to renovate the building and has signed a 10-year contract with TechHub Riga.

TechHub Riga occupies the 5th and 6th floors of the building. The 5th floor is an open space type office with desks designed for individual members and small teams, two meeting rooms separated with glass walls and a kitchen. The second floor hosts grown-up startups that still want to be part of the community. Each team has their own glass room that allows some privacy, yet still enables all networking benefits. Uldis Leiterts, the founder of Infogr.am notes that being part of TechHub greatly facilitated finding the right talent for his startup.

As many startups note in TechHub fundraising campaign, the hub has been very valuable to them. We are happy to see TechHub Riga grow and develop and are looking forward to more Lavian startups growing from this powerful community.

Article originally published on arcticstartup.com on November 28th, 2014.

Latvian Mixed Choir Sõla 15th Anniversary CD

Egils Kaljo | 

To celebrate their 15th anniversary, the mixed choir Sõla, of the Latvian Academy of Culture, commissioned new compositions from a number of distinguished Latvian composers to be performed at their anniversary concert in December of 2013. The theme of the compositions was the four elements – earth, water, air and fire.

Sõla, led by artistic director Kaspars Ādamsons, and assisted by conductors Rūdolfs Bacāns and Jēkabs Jančevskis  (also a composer), then proceeded to record these compositions and present them on their 2014 CD Stihiju spēles.

As a bonus, the choir recorded a second work by Jančevskis – ‘Adveniat Regnum’ – to represent the fifth element – the spirit.

This is now Sõla’s third CD, after 2008’s Pūra dziesmas, and 2014’s Jānim Cimzem – 200.

The choir Sõla, which, along with the youth choir Kamēr…, shared the Grand Prix Award at the 2013 Song Festival mixed choir competition, also represented Latvia at the Europe Sings choir festival in Vienna in May of 2014, which was broadcast to audiences all over Europe.

For more information, please visit Sola’s website.

Track listing

  1. Mārtiņš Brauns / Knuts Skujenieks – “Kaut kāda melna uguns”
  2. Arturs Maskats / Monta Kroma – “Ir vēsas lūpas”
  3. Evija Skuķe – Vēja vocalize
  4. Jēkabs Jančevskis / Latvian folk song texts – “Atsalums”
  5. Andris Dzenītis / Dorothy Walters – “A Cloth of Fine Gold”
  6. Andris Dzenītis / William Butler Yeats – “Everlasting Voices”
  7. Indra Riše / Māra Cielēna – “Saule, vējš un pārējie”
  8. Indra Riše / Māra Cielēna – “Lūgšana par mūsu zemi”
  9. Indra Riše / Māra Cielēna – “Īsta princese”
  10. Santa Ratniece / Inga Ābele – “Pēc vēja”
  11. Selga Mence / Rainer Maria Rilke – “Herbst”
  12. Jēkabs Jančevskis / Liturgical texts – “Adveniat Regnum”

Egils Kaljo is an American-born Latvian from the New York area . Kaljo began listening to Latvian music as soon as he was able to put a record on a record player, and still has old Bellacord 78 rpm records lying around somewhere.

Latvian Opera Diva Garanča Releases New Album

Egils Kaljo | 

Famed Latvian mezzo-soprano Elīna Garanča has released her latest album entitled Meditation (Deutsche Grammophon, DG 479 2071). Featuring works of a more spiritual and meditative nature, Garanča is joined by Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken and the Latvian Radio Choir, conducted by Karel Mark Chichon.

The collection also features works by Latvian composers – a new arrangement of Uģis Prauliņš’ ‘Dievaines’, and Pēteris Vasks’ ‘Dusi dusi’ and ‘Paldies tev vēlā saule’.

Garanča will perform works from this album on tour in Europe in October 2014, and returns to Carmen at the New York Metropolitan Opera in 2015.

For more information, please visit Elīna Garanča’s website and her biography on the Deutsche Grammophon site.

See the music video for ‘Dievaines’ here.

Track listing

  1. Gounod, Charles: Messe solennelle en l’honneur de Sainte-Cécile: Sanctus
  2. Gounod, Charles: Repentir O Divine Redeemer
  3. Prauliņš , Uģis: Dievaines
  4. Mascagni, Pietro: Cavalleria rusticana: Regina coeli laetare
  5. Mascagni, Pietro: Cavalleria rusticana: Ave Maria (Adapted from Intermezzo sinfonico)
  6. Gomez, William: Ave Maria
  7. Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus: Vesperae solemnes de confessore, K. 339: Laudate Dominum
  8. Bizet, Georges: Agnus Dei (based on Intermezzo from L Arlesienne Suite No. 2)
  9. Puccini, Giacomo: Salve Regina
  10. Adam, Adolphe: Cantique de Noel (O Holy Night)
  11. Vasks, Pēteris: Silent Songs, No 2 Dusi dusi
  12. Vasks, Pēteris: Silent Songs, No 4 Paldies tev vēlā saule
  13. Allegri, Gregorio: Miserere mei, Deus
  14. Caccini, Giulio (attr.) / Vavilov, Vladimir: Ave Maria

 

Egils Kaljo is an American-born Latvian from the New York area . Kaljo began listening to Latvian music as soon as he was able to put a record on a record player, and still has old Bellacord 78 rpm records lying around somewhere.